MR. SHINWELL'S NONSENSE "
SIR,—Your paragraph under the heading of Coal and Current in your issue of September loth seemed to me to deal with Mr. Shinwell's attitude to electricity supply with unanswerable logic. The Minister has lately been in every way unfortunate—in getting coal, in the weather, but, most of all, in his utterances. The public has not noticed a " villainous cam- paign against the Government." What it has noticed are (t) The reports about low coal stocks, which are authoritative ; (2) That coal production continues to be inadequate to keep electricity suppliers above the danger line ; (3) That restriction of electricity supplies has begun.
It sees no difference between restriction and rationing. Both mean the same thing—the threat of cold dinners and diminished public service. These are the implications of the present situation which you rightly stressed. May I further stress that those people who imagine that the companies were, in some way, delinquent when supplies were cut are grossly misinformed. The Central Electricity Board alone has authority to order cuts. It might be further emphasised that the cut involved the municipal undertakers as well. In emergencies such as that recently, there can be no warning to the public. The order goes out from the C.E.B. over direct lines to the selected power-stations. The companies took in good time the only action they could take in a situation which they recognised as dangerous to the interests of consumers. They issued a general warning that fuel-stocks were so low that some form of rationing was unavoidable in the winter. This, Mr. Shinwell characterised as "nonsense." The facts, however, speak for themselves.—I am, Sir,
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